Bicam defers DPWH budget talks, proceeds with other agencies

The bicameral conference committee proceedings on the proposed P6.7 trillion national budget for 2026 resumed on Tuesday night after the House and the Senate agreed to defer discussions on the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) budget.

Senate finance panel chairperson Senator Win Gatchalian cited the ongoing recomputation of the material costs of the DPWH projects following a revised submission from DPWH  Secretary Vince Dizon.

“I would like to apologize for the delay. We just received the revised adjustment factors [on the price of materials] and applied them to 10,000 projects. Just to give you some idea, when we applied the previous adjustment factors, it took us three weeks to apply them to the 10,000 projects. And this is a very daunting task, given that we have a timetable that we have to achieve,” Gatchalian said.

“This morning, our team in the Senate received the revised adjustment factors, and they applied this to the 10,000 projects. Unfortunately, they couldn't complete it by this time. They needed more time to do this. But the team assured me that all of these things will be ready by tomorrow," he added.

Gatchalian requested that the members of the bicameral panel proceed instead with discussions of the budget of the other agencies, such as the Department of Agrarian Reform and the Department of Interior and Local Government.

House appropriations panel chairperson, Rep. Mikaela Suansing, said their contingent would await the recomputed projects.

“I understand the level of work that would come into having the process on the data. So with that, the House contingent looks forward to seeing the output of this new exercise. And with that,  we hope that we can proceed with other agencies first, and then tackle DPWH once the information is ready,” Suansing added.

Prior to the resumption, Senator Francis Pangilinan told reporters that they are still waiting for the final figures from Dizon.

“We just have preliminary numbers. We will have to wait for the data, and we will have to cross-check,” Pangilinan told reporters.

The Senate contingent postponed the bicam proceedings on Monday, December 15, a decision which was not shared by the House contingent.

Gatchalian announced the December 15 postponement amid the Senate’s disagreement with the House version of the DPWH budget, which stands at P624 billion, a reduction from its original proposal of P880 billion.

The Senate, however, further reduced it to P570 billion, citing Dizon’s statements before the Senate budget deliberations that DPWH projects were overpriced. —LDF, GMAa Integrated News